From March 2007, rupee appreciation becomes an apprehension for us. It’s like thunder storm for exporters of our country especially (SMEs). Rupee appreciated by 13%, in the value of the rupee over the US dollar since March 2007 and 7% against a basket of currencies including the yen and renminbi is an increase that does not reflect economic fundamentals and is seriously hurting Indian industry’s competitiveness, margins and exports. Initially it was taken as boon by the Indian business community but due to various reasons it becomes a curse for Indian export community.According to various economists and experts, there are some factors which are boosting this issue like excess capital inflow, federal interest rate cut, poor government policies, political intervention etc.
Capital Inflow: if look at the statistics, Capital inflows have reached close to $16 b during Jan-Nov 2007 and around $8.2 b came in between the Fed rate cut in September and when the Indian govt. imposed curbs on foreign investors in mid-October. If we analyze the situation thoroughly, capital inflow in country is very good but due to its utilization or output is very subdued, it’s is creating a gap and supporting rupee appreciation. Few examples are given below:
- Indian railway plans to raise Rs 728 bn and partially from ECB (External commercial borrowing).
- Real estate and infrastructure sector accounted around $2.2 bn of investment and its climbing on top of top of PE funds.
- IT & ITES sector is all time hit for foreign investors.
Capital inflow is good for development of country but its returns are very slow because of non productivity and inefficiency of system which affects exchange rates and results a setback for Indian business community.
Federal rate cuts: Last year (2007), when US Federal Reserve decided to cut the interest rates, around $ 8.7 Bn portfolio investment flowed into Indian stock market.
Government Tussle: India is very lucrative market for investors and they are investing in it very well, at the same time our government become greedier and trying to pool so much of capital investment without any proper use of last investments.
Biggest Losers:
As per the estimation of FIEO, around 8 mn jobs likely to be lost in export intensive industries. There are few industries which are the heavily suffered from havoc (rupee appreciation) are given with available statistics:
| Textile and garments | 6 lakhs job lost, loss in production capacity-20-25% |
| Leather | 7 lakhs job lost, reduced profitablity-75% |
| Processed agriculture products | around 20% job lost, cash loss of 15% |
| handicrafts | 8 lakhs job lost, business loss-$ 7.5 bn |
| Engineering goods | 16 lakhs job lost, cash loss- 12-17% |
| chemicals | reduction in exports-20-25% |
| Marine Products | reduction in exports-10% |
Technical analysis of rupee appreciation:
Here I am trying to explain that how exchange rate affects exporters’ trade, derivation table of price elasticity of demand is given below just go through it once with pen and paper, then you realize quantitatively that how badly exchange rate affects exporters’ trade dynamics.
Look at the eq. 5 also brings out clearly how rising costs and an appreciating local currency can apply pressure on both the cost and revenue sides and render the export trade quite uneconomic.
Let me explain all this with one real time example:
Let’s assume that one Indian exporter exports only to the U.S. How this rupee appreciation affects his business.
P=C/S*(1-1/N) where P is price quote by exporter (in USD).
C is Cost incurred in producing one unit of product (in Rs).
S is Exchange rate Rs/$
N is price elasticity of demand
| Year | S | C (in Rs.) | C (in USD) | P (in USD) |
| aug,2006 | 46.56 | 100 | 2.15 | 4.30 |
| Jan,2007 | 44.35 | 110 | 2.48 | 4.96 |
| May,2007 | 41.39 | 121 | 2.92 | 5.85 |
| Sep,2007 | 40.9 | 133.1 | 3.25 | 6.51 |
| Jan,2008 | 39.39 | 146.41 | 3.72 | 7.43 |
In the table given above, Price quote by Indian exporter is calculated by the formula given above, if we compare the cost of production (C in USD) to the exporter and price quote by exporter to its US customer (P in USD), there is margin that’s ok but I am trying to draw your attention toward the price P(in USD) quoted by Indian exporter to his US customer is increasing every quarter and its marginal change of price (P) in percentage is increasing in every quarter with rupee appreciation. The price quote change in last 16 months is increased by 73% just because of price value of rupee against dollar.
Compare the above workings with that for a Chinese exporter who has not experienced such cost side pressures and also, importantly, benefits from a relatively much more stable currency. The Chinese yuan, for instance, has been allowed to rise around 9 per cent against the dollar in the two years since July 2005 — from 8.28 to 7.51 now — but the Indian currency is up 13 per cent in just the last 9 months.
The Indian exporter will be literally priced out by his competitors who have not experienced such cost side pressures/local currency appreciation and have no bargaining power too.
It is obvious that the Chinese exporter will have a significant price advantage which can be extremely useful in increasing market share — particularly in low value-added items.
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